Medical Education and its path now and how to strengthen it

1. How to strengthen the Medical Education & Research to
meet the needs of today’s health care system?.: Review
Article
Author: Dr.P.Sreenivasulu Reddy, MD.,
The dual obligation of any medical professional is to teach their students and to
treat their patients. As per the MCI guidelines every Medical College should have a well
equipped and functional Medical Educational Unit (MEU) for effective, high-quality
teaching and learning experiences. Even with inclusion of effective teaching-learning
methods in the medical education, today’s students are having average willingness to
learn in spite of high intellectual abilities. At the same time majority of the students are
non-committed and lacking reverence towards their teachers and superiors. Performance
in extracurricular activities is poor and problem solving abilities are very poor. Even
though ability to adapt to technology is very good, acceptancy to change is very poor.
Communication with parents and patients is very poor. So to encourage and improve the
learning skills among the learners our teaching curriculum must be changed. In spite of
vast available knowledge from various sources of educational systems, the teaching in
medical colleges is mostly static with very little emphasis on practical knowledge and
problem-based learning.
Regular training programmes to be conducted to all teaching staff and has to be
monitored. There is an effective and compulsory training programme for school teachers
to teach and train their students. Unfortunately there is no such compulsory course to
become a medical teacher. Mentoring system fosters the active learning environment
where learners are allowed to address their priorities and learning needs. This mentoring
system would be useful for professional development and incline a learner towards

2. research activities. Appropriate guidance at each and very early stage can fast-track the
future research qualities. Undergraduates should be encouraged to learn better
communication skills and changes in their attitudes. Our education system is based
solely on scoring of marks irrespective of their attitudes, communication skills and on
their research activities. Selection of students for medical college is through a qualifying
examination to evaluate their knowledge. Many have argued that intelligent quotient
(IQ) may do academically brilliant but socially and interpersonally not appropriate to
[4]
meet the demands of patients. This has to be changed grossly. Interpersonal and
communication skills of medical students and professionals are important in relieving
anxiety and establishing trusting relationships among the students, professionals and
patients including their attendants.[6]
Near peer role modeling is an alternate method of paradigm which is more
possible and accessible also further easy to replicate. [2] To enable this, educational
methods should encourage the junior students to have better mingling with senior
students at college level soon after their entry into the medical college. All barriers have
to be curtailed. Free and controlled interaction among them should be encouraged.
Formal meetings between senior and junior batches have to be arranged by the
institutional authorities under the supervision of a team of faculty members. Over
enthusiastic rules of any kind should not be rubbed over the fresh students in medical
profession.
All subjects in medical profession are equally valuable and necessary for patient
care. Being teachers our outlook has to be changed in this respect and the same attitude
should be encouraged among the learners. All specialties in medicine are expanding but

3. the process of incorporating it in teaching-learning curricula is almost nil in our system,
resulting in an ever – solved gap among the specialties. These trends are adversely
affecting the patient care in the health-care systems. Integration and correlation of
subjects will help in more meaningful learning. Active participation by the learner must
be encouraged. Learning by the learner should be accompanied by feedback to become
more competent for the demanding needs. All the great teachers of an institution should
be experienced by all the sections of students. A good teacher should be accessible to a
cross section of a students in a medical school.[9]
Research takes a lot of time and energy. Most of the institutes insists for research
without understanding the existing departmental ground realities. Actually it is team work
by well experienced people in the field concern. Lack of sufficient staff including
technical and non-technical staff and many number of courses for each department will
restrict the research caliber of the researcher. Any type of research is not accounted for in
the credits. This may be the reason why published research output from South – Asia is
not up to the mark.[1]
Students’ journals help to improve the undergraduate training by providing
innovative educational experiences for publication process.[3] Very few journals of such
kind are available like The Journal of Young Investigators, Mc. Gill Journal of Medicine
and Indian Journal of Postgraduate Medicine. Recently Indian Journal of Medical
Research has introduced a students’ section. Pedagogy is one among our PG training
curriculum. Unfortunately considerable number of medical teachers as well as learners
are not at all aware of its process. Some are least interested in micro-teaching and its

4. contents. Strict implementation of micro-teaching in undergraduate teaching helps in the
conceptual learning by learners.
Teacher should facilitate concept attainment rather than memorization of inert
facts. Medical education must change to meet the changing health care needs of the
population and the changing demands of patients. Medical colleges must work hard to
improve not only the academic brilliancy but train the students in the interpersonal
dimension of practicing medicine.[5]
Training the students with proper medical academic curriculum to incorporate and
emphasize student centered, problem-based and integrated medical education which
improve their careers. This kind of educational system further improves knowledge,
attitudes towards research and their skills in critical situations.[3]
Emotional Intelligence (EI) has proved to be key attribute for success in the
corporate sectors has now gained momentum in the field of medical and general
education. It explains the able ness, skill to manage the emotions of one’s self. [7]
Doctors with good Emotional intelligence Quotient (EQ) have proved to have effective
communication and interpersonal skills also receive less complaints from patients and
play a major role in reducing medical errors.[8]
References:
1. Sadana R, D Souza C, Hyder AA, Chowdhury AM. Importance of health Research in
South Asia. BMJ 2004; 328:826-30.
2. Singh S. Near peer role modeling: The fledgling scholars education paradigm. Anat
Sci Educ. 2010; 3: 50-1.
3. Aslam F, Shakir M, Qayyum MA . Why the medical students are crucial to future of

5. research in South Asia. PLoS Med 2005; 2:e322.
4. Accreditation council for Graduate Medical Education. Programme director guide to
the common program requirements.
http://www.acgme.org/acwebsite/navpages/navPages/nav_commonpr.asp. Accessed
October 19, 2011.
5. Z.Zayapragassirajan, santhosh kumar. Emotional Intelligence and Medical
Professionalism. N.T.T.C bulletin 2011; 18 (2): 3-4.
6. Freshman B. Rubins L. Emotional intelligence : A core competency for health care
administrators. Hlth Care Mgr. 2002; 20(4): 1-9.
7. Weng, H., chen, H, chen H, Lu, K, Hung.S. Doctors emotional intelligence and the
patient doctor relationship. Medical Education. 2008; 42(7): 703-711.
8. Mayer J, Salovey P. What is emotional intelligence? In : Salovey P. sluyter D,eds.
Emotional Development and emotional Intelligence : Implications for educators. New
York, NY : Basic Books, 2007: 3-31.
9. V.V. Unnikrishnan. The Seekers and the Sought : a novel Teaching Learning concept.
N.T.T.C bulletin 2011; 18 (2): 6-7.